By Kurt Kragthorpe

| Salt Lake | Tribune Columnist

For almost three months now, Utahns have dominated the Champions Tour.

Even with the technicality that the tour took that much time off after the 2011 season, the fact remains that the winners of the tour’s final event of last year and the first tournament of this year have something in common.

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Here’s a clue: Last spring’s inductions into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame.

The guys who joined Todd Barker in those ceremonies are playing some great golf, as the world’s best senior golfers can attest. Provo resident Dan Forsman’s victory in the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii on Sunday followed a win by St. George’s Jay Don Blake in the Charles Schwab Championship in San Francisco in early November.

Just to drive home that point, Blake finished second to Forsman in Hawaii.

Each victory came in a limited-field event, which actually gives the winners more credibility. Blake was among the 30 leading money-winners in 2011 who qualified for the final event, while the two of them were among the 41 who took advantage of their eligibility as tournament winners of the past two seasons (or major winners of the past five years, in the case of Provo’s Mike Reid).

The two-year provision, designed to increase the size of the field, made Forsman’s entry possible. The 2011 season was difficult for him, amid problems with his left hip. He finished 45th on the money list and posted only one top-10 finish, after having won a tournament in each of his first two full seasons and placed in the top 10 on the money list.

Forsman, 53, had gone 20 months between victories, an eternity on a tour where the window for winning is usually short. The emotions hit him hard during the presentation on the 18th green. As he said later, "I was really humbled to think I could be on top of this field of guys I’ve admired and competed against all my professional life. The chance to be on top of a distinguished group of players like this is something I’ll always cherish. You’ve got to be blessed to have an opportunity like this and I feel like I am. I really do."

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com

Twitter: @tribkurt